Citizen Drivers

Fort Worth Weekly was scheduled to be a small part of Historic Fort Worth Inc.’s annual awards last week – reporters Dan McGraw and Betty Brink were due to be honored. But as it turned out, our little rag led off the show.Featured speaker Pratt Cassity, a renowned professor of design and preservation at the University of Georgia, began by saying he had a hard time deciding on a title for his speech. He listed his first two choices; one was “When Community Improvement and Urban Growth Collide with Preservation.” Now, there’s a barn-burner.While he dithered, during his day in town, he went for lunch at a Mexican restaurant on South Main Street, and inspiration dropped into his lap, in the form of the Weekly’s “Best of 2008” edition. He opened it up and saw editor Gayle’s Reaves’ introductory essay, called “Holding the Reins on Change.” “This is the slogan you need to adopt,” Cassity told the crowd, “and everyone here should read this essay.”You heard the man: Go read it, if you haven’t already. And take another minute to congratulate the reporters. McGraw was honored for writing about the city’s shutdown of Heritage Park and Brink for her exposure of the Tarrant County College downtown campus mess. We may not hold the reins, but we do our best to tell you where the buggy’s headed.

Since 1994, Fort Worth Weekly has provided a vibrant alternative to North Texas’ often-timid mainstream media outlets by offering incisive, irreverent reportage that keeps readers well informed and the powers-that-be worried.